


Different Placements

by ncfan



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Gen, Set in the same universe as chidorinnn's Domestic Exorcists AU verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-10 03:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6938098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. A teenage Seiji comes upon Takashi in the aftermath of an assignment. It is a beginning, of sorts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different Placements

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chidorinnn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chidorinnn/gifts).



> This is set in chidorinnn's Domestic Exorcists AU-verse; thus, the fic is dedicated to her. Since she has posted those fics to AO3, I thought I would post mine here too, and it has accordingly been cleaned up a little from when it was posted to Tumblr.

“Got you.”

There was often a great deal of ambiguity in the sort of jobs an exorcist took. Seiji would admit that. He had more than once been called upon to seal or exorcise an ayakashi that was doing nothing more dangerous than squatting in an unoccupied house or safeguarding a tree or a statue or what-have-you. He’d never turned down those sorts of assignments, though, when they came to him. Even peaceable ayakashi could turn hostile in an instant. Even peaceable ayakashi could kill a human. And the one he hunted today was not peaceable.

Recently, there had been a rash of disappearances in the town where Seiji went to school. All of those who were missing were children, between the ages of six and eleven. The police thought it the work of a serial killer, and looked for a human culprit. Whether or not they would ever find one, Seiji did not know, but his clan had recently received information regarding an ayakashi that had been preying on human children.

After spending the better part of a week trying to track it through the vast forests surrounding the town, guided by spilled blood, he took a certain vicious satisfaction in being able to watch it die himself.

That, he had supposed, would be the end of it. But when the ayakashi faded away like mist in the early spring sunshine, Seiji heard a small sound come from somewhere nearby. He reached for another arrow and scanned his surroundings tensely, listening for any sound of crunching leaves or branches. Eventually, Seiji caught sight of movement, a pale flash in the sunlight, and saw something hiding in a depression in the ground, beneath the sprawling roots of a cedar tree. Green eyes, wide with fear, stared out at him from the darkness.

As Seiji drew closer, he saw the other for what it was: an ayakashi disguised as a young human boy, whimpering and trembling convulsively. It had done a good job, too, but silver-white hair and green eyes, both vanishingly rare in this part of the world, told the tale. Was it the other ayakashi’s accomplice? Seiji could see now, how the ayakashi lured its prey—have a weaker one disguise itself as a child in trouble or wanting to play or anything like that, and draw the victim away into the forest where no one could hear them scream or cry for help. It was clever. It—

No. Enough of this. Anything that preyed on humans, whether weak or strong, had no place in the world Seiji lived in. One that dared to wear the mantle of its victims even after it had been found out had no place anywhere.

Seiji nocked his arrow and drew the bowstring taut, lining up for another shot. The ayakashi threw up its scratched, bleeding hands, only for Seiji to watch as blood dripped to the ground and lied there, inert, like a human’s would.

This wasn’t an ayakashi at all.

“Oh, you’re human!” he muttered, taken aback. It seemed that Seiji had come upon the ayakashi while it was in the process of killing its latest victim. He laid his bow and arrow carefully on the ground and edged towards the cedar tree, keeping his hands spread out so that the boy could see that he wasn’t carrying any weapons. “I’m not going to hurt you,” Seiji murmured, trying for a soothing tone.

The child, it seemed, didn’t buy it, because he stayed right where he was, staring at Seiji as though he was going to leap forward and strangle him. Seiji didn’t suppose he could blame him; the boy had likely had an awful day already, and staring at an arrow aimed directly at his head could only have compounded his troubles. The only mercy to this situation was that Seiji had realized he was human before shooting. _Would that it was easier to be sure that someone was a human or an ayakashi._

Seiji finally came to stand over the roots of the cedar tree, but the boy still wouldn’t come out. “Come on,” Seiji told him. He plastered a reassuring smile to his face as he went on, “You can’t stay there forever. The ayakashi’s gone now; it’s safe to come out.”

When the boy shook his head, still refusing to cooperate, Seiji took matters into his own hands. He reached down and, ignoring all protests (“Put me down!” coupled with kicking feet), wrapped his hands around the boy’s waist and pulled him out from under the roots of the cedar tree. As he did so, Seiji couldn’t help but notice that the boy felt very, very thin under his clothes.

In the light of day, the boy was pale, filthy, and bleeding from numerous cuts on his arms and legs. Seiji stared at him curiously, wondering who he was to have attracted the attention of his attempted murderer. The spiritually powerful tended to make better eating (or so Seiji was told), but this boy looked far too delicate for that. It was difficult to guess his age, eight or nine, maybe, and he appeared to be so insubstantial that he might blow away like a dry leaf in the wind.

“Now, who—“

Before Seiji could say any more, the boy ran away, so fast that the wind might have been under his feet. He stared after him, bewildered, but didn’t try to run after him. It would be easy enough to find the boy again later; after all, how many human children with white hair and green eyes were there running around town?

-0-0-0-

Yota-san and Ayane-san weren’t happy when Takashi showed back up at their house in the state he was in, though the nature of their complaints skewed far more towards worry over the neighbors seeing him bloody and dirty than as to how Takashi had gotten bloody and dirty in the first place. Any attempts to explain himself were summarily ignored.

_“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Takashi! Do you honestly think anyone believes you when you go on about spirits and ayakashi?! Why is it so hard for you to just tell the truth?!”_

Takashi didn’t know what to say to them at all.

For the next week after that, he treaded lightly around his foster parents. He came back to their house a little later than he would have otherwise and he stayed in his room when he was there, doing homework, reading library books, staring out of the window into the misty night. He’d hear the baby crying in her room, and want to go see her, but Ayane-san had forbidden him from being alone with her the day they brought her home from the hospital, and Takashi didn’t think he could make her stop crying, anyways. Through the walls came the muffled sounds of Ayane-san and Yota-san arguing, though about what, Takashi couldn’t hear. (He suspected it was him.)

Now, Takashi sat on a hillside where the wind blew unobstructed over the soft spring grass, the road at his back. The afternoon was wearing into shadows and golden skies tinged with red. He’d be scolded if he didn’t make it to the house soon, but that barely crossed his mind right now. The noise of passing cars and the chatter of passersby reached his ears, but he paid it little mind. He just… wished he could stay like this, with the wind blowing over him. _If I was a tree, or a rock, or a flower, I could stay here,_ he mused _. I’d like that. Maybe not a flower, though. Frost kills those._

A crow flew by overhead, its harsh cawing ringing in the air.

Maybe he could be a bird, instead, and fly away from here.

A shadow fell over him.

When Takashi looked up, and saw the source of the shadow, he nearly fell over in fright. It was the boy from last weekend.

“Don’t run off again,” the older boy said quickly, sitting down on the grass beside him. “I just wanted to talk with you.” He wore a coal black school uniform and his book bag made a heavy thump when it hit the ground. He smiled almost slyly at Takashi, lips curling back just enough to see teeth. They looked like normal human teeth, not sharp or too-big like a lot of ayakashi (the ones who had teeth, that is) had, but as Takashi knew all too well, there were plenty of ayakashi who could make themselves look just like humans.

“’M not supposed to talk to strangers,” Takashi mumbled, trying to avoid eye contact with the older boy. Yota-san had been especially adamant about that, saying that Takashi would be ‘carried off’ if he talked to strangers. Almost too late had Takashi learned this wisdom of those words.

The older boy’s eyebrows shot up. “But we have met before; we’re not total strangers. If you’re curious about my name, it’s Matoba Seiji.”

Well, now that the boy— _Seiji_ —had given his name, Takashi could see no way out of giving his as well. “I’m Takashi. …Natsume Takashi.”

Seiji dug around in his bag and came out with a slip of paper covered in characters Takashi didn’t recognize. “You should take this, Natsume-kun,” he said, holding the paper out to him.

Takashi stuffed his hands in his pockets and shook his head violently. “I can’t take something weird!”

“It’s a talisman. If you keep it in your house, ayakashi won’t be able to attack you there. You don’t already have something like that where you live, do you?” Seiji asked, eyes narrowed.

Takashi frowned at him. “No. We don’t have weird stuff there. But how do I know it wouldn’t do something like curse me? How do I know _you’re_ not an ayakashi? You kinda act like one!”

For a moment, Seiji was silent. He stared at Takashi contemplatively. Then, he set the ‘talisman’ aside, reached into his book bag and pulled out something else, something that made Takashi cringe and edge away from him. A pocket knife. “You can know that I am human,” Seiji murmured, “the same way I know that you are human.” He flicked open one of the blades on the pocket knife, and slowly slit one of his fingertips with it. Then, Seiji pressed at the edge of the cut, and Takashi watched, transfixed, as two drops of blood, bright red and reeking of copper, fell onto the grass. “Blood is the key, Natsume-kun. An ayakashi’s blood, freshly spilled, will move under its own power, like a living thing. A human’s never would.”

Himself, Takashi had never seen an ayakashi bleed. He didn’t know for sure if Seiji was telling the truth. But it was much less certainly that he said to him, “G… Go talk to someone up on the sidewalk. I won’t believe you unless you do.”

“Alright.” Without even missing a beat, Seiji got to his feet with all the fluid grace of a cat, dropping the pocket knife onto his book bag. Takashi watched as he walked back up the hill to the sidewalk and stopped a woman walking by. They spoke for a minute or two, in soft enough voices that Takashi couldn’t hear what they were saying. _He really is human…_

“Sorry,” Takashi mumbled when Seiji sat back down beside him.

“Not at all.” Seiji smiled again, much more gently this time. “The exercise of caution is prudent if you’re not sure of the one you speak with.” The smile faded from his face. “Do ayakashi often try to trick you by approaching in human guises?”

“Sometimes.”

Seiji’s dark hair fell over his face as he tilted his head. He reached again for the talisman, and tried to press it into Takashi’s hands. “You should take this, then. If you put it in your house, it will keep ayakashi from entering should the nameplate fail to keep them out.”

But Takashi did not take it. “I can’t,” he said, frowning down at the talisman. He would have liked to take it, but… “They don’t like it when I bring home weird stuff, or talk about it.” He turned a curious look on Seiji. “So you really can see ayakashi too?”

Laughter came at this, and Takashi hunched his shoulders, a little offended—he didn’t like being laughed at, not at all. “Of course I can!” Seiji exclaimed. “I thought that that had been established. So can my family, and my clan.”

“All of them?!”

“Most, yes.” Seiji narrowed his eyes again. “You’ve never known someone else who could see?”

Takashi shook his head and said nothing. The wind seemed to cut through him like a knife at that admission.

Seiji looked off into the distance, wearing an expression that Takashi couldn’t read. “I see.”

For years had Takashi waited for a moment like this. For someone to believe him, and more than that, for someone to say that they could see the same things he could. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, that it was this boy—Seiji, who just last week had aimed an arrow at his head. It was something, though.

-0-0-0-

Just looking at him and speaking with him, Seiji had a hard time believing at first that Takashi had just randomly been born to parents and to a family that could not see. Oh, he knew that that was the way with many who could see ayakashi, and indeed was the way with many of the exorcists who weren’t associated with the Matoba clan (Or whose families hadn’t been associated with the Natori clan, when that clan was more than one young exorcist stubbornly trying to keep his family name alive). Takashi said that ayakashi approached him in human forms, likely with the intent to harm, ‘sometimes.’ Ayakashi rarely considered spiritually weak humans to be worth the effort of repeat attempts at kidnapping or killing, unless they were the scion of an exorcist clan. It was not impossible, but it was rare for a powerful child to be born to those who could not see, and had never seen.

Seiji wondered initially if Takashi wasn’t in the same situation Shuuichi had been in, the child of a defunct exorcist clan whose family either no longer remembered what they had been, or didn’t want to remember and prioritized their ignorance over their child’s safety. The name ‘Natsume’ had never come up in any history lessons, but it was possible that Seiji had heard it once long ago, and had forgotten.

The Matoba clan kept extensive records about exorcists in the district, dating back to just after the beginning of the Edo period when it had first become common to take attendance records at meetings. There were also records about the exorcist clans that had been in operation since that time onwards. It took Seiji an entire weekend to go through it all, but as far as he could tell, there was no record of a clan called ‘Natsume’ in the district, and no record of any single exorcist called ‘Natsume’, either.

The books regarding exorcist clans covered the entire country, but the attendance records were only for the district, and though such truths were not officially recognized, there had always been clans and individual exorcists who operated outside the community. In that case, there was a chance that some of the ayakashi who now served the Matoba clan—many of whom had come from outside the area, and had had many dealings with exorcists and served other families before becoming the retainers of the Matoba clan—might recognize the name ‘Natsume.’

Well, Seiji was able to divine no more from the ayakashi than he had from the records. Many seemed genuinely unfamiliar with the name. There were others who Seiji suspected knew something, but were rather less than forthcoming about what they knew. Seiji knew of ways to force ayakashi to talk, but he had been conducting his research on his own and what needed to be done to _make_ ayakashi talk would have attracted too much attention. It seemed that, unless the ancestry came from the distaff* line or the ayakashi knew something, Takashi did not come from an exorcist clan, extant or otherwise.

And then there was what Takashi said about his family…

In comparison to trying to find any evidence of an exorcist named ‘Natsume’ in the records, it was easy to figure out where Takashi lived.

“I want you to follow that boy home, and surveil the house where he lives for the next three days,” Seiji said to the shadow ayakashi he had instructed to wait for him that day at school. “ _Discreetly_ , mind you, and without letting him or anyone else know that you are watching. Once you are done, report back to me and tell me what you have seen. Do you understand?”

The ayakashi nodded, and began to follow after the small, white-haired child.

When Seiji got his report, he did not like what he heard. At all.

-0-0-0-

It was not unprecedented for the Matoba clan, or any of the other exorcist clans in the district, when they had still been in operation, to adopt spiritually powerful children from families who couldn’t take care of them properly. There were a few exorcists in his clan now who had gotten their start that way, taken in as children born to parents who could neither guide nor protect them. But their parents had at least tried to help them, which, according to the report Seiji received, which was much more than could be said for Takashi’s guardians.

“This is surprising,” Seiji’s father said once he broached the idea to him. There hung on his face the hint of an amused smile. “When you asked to speak with me I didn’t expect it to be about something like this.”

“Natsume-kun could be a great asset to the clan,” Seiji pointed out cautiously. As it stood now, he had no idea if Takashi had any aptitude for exorcism. Raw power was no indication of skill, and he wasn’t even sure of Takashi’s power, not really. Just that he made a tantalizing-enough target to attract more than his fair share of unsavory attention. In short, he was grasping at straws and wasn’t sure how he would argue it out if his father pointed that out. “It would be imprudent to leave him to his own devices, especially if one of our rivals was to get to him first.”

“It would, at that. Alright, Seiji; I’ll support you in this. But understand me: you must be the one to speak to the boy’s foster parents about this. And if they are persuaded to turn him over to us, you alone will be responsible for his safety here.”

“I understand, Father.”

-0-0-0-

Natsume Takashi’s current foster parents, Yoshida Yota and Ayane, were not a particularly hard sell on the idea of turning Takashi over to the Matoba clan. They wanted him out of their house (especially now that their baby had been born), but were at first a little recalcitrant at the idea of handing him over to someone outside of the extended family. They had, perhaps, realized by now that if the newspaper ever got ahold of the story the headline would be less “Family nobly shields the world from lying, trouble-making child” and more “Horrible family conspires to abuse possibly mentally-ill boy in order to satisfy collective martyr complex.”

However, the Matoba clan, though their status as exorcists was not known to the wider world, did have a reputation, one that made the Yoshidas unwilling to cross them. There was also the matter of the smile the young man who had come to speak with them wore throughout the entire conversation. They weren’t sure what, but there was something unsettling about it. Maybe it was the way the smile exposed far more teeth than a natural smile would have. Maybe it was the way the smile never reached the his eyes.

But they agreed to it, nonetheless, and thus took place an adoption of decidedly dubious legality.

-0-0-0-

When the boy Takashi had met a couple of weeks ago said that he was going to stay with his family now, Takashi didn’t fight it. He didn’t put up a fuss. He didn’t try to tell his foster parents that he wanted to stay with them (Regardless of whether or not he _actually_ wanted to stay with them). He was by now rather used to decisions like this being made without his input. Takashi knew that nothing he said would be listened to, and beyond that, he knew when he wasn’t wanted. It was time to go. That was all.

He was curious to meet Seiji’s family; that much was true. Takashi had never known any other people who could see ayakashi too. Maybe… Maybe it would be nicer there.

Takashi lived on the Matoba clan’s main estate for three months. There were ayakashi everywhere, which put him on edge at first, but after a few days with no incidents, he learned simply not to look at them when they walked past each other in the halls or on the grounds, and there was no trouble. When Takashi thought about it, he remembered that there had always been ayakashi like that, ones who wouldn’t give him any trouble if he just didn’t talk to them. It was hard to remember that, sometimes, considering all the trouble he’d gotten from other ayakashi in the past.

The adults mostly ignored him, including Seiji’s father Matoba-san, whom Takashi had initially assumed was his new guardian. He didn’t mind that, actually, as most of the adults (especially Seiji’s father) were a little scary-looking. The children were friendlier. There was no one on the compound who was exactly Takashi’s age, but there were three children, a pair of six-year-old fraternal twins and a seven-year-old girl, who were close enough in age that they saw him as someone new to play with, rather than an older child to be in awe of. And Seiji himself continued to be a little odd. His smiles were a little sharper than they should have been, and Takashi always found himself looking for double meanings in his words, even when what he said seemed straightforward enough.

This whole place was odd, actually, and oddest of all was what Takashi found out about the Matoba clan’s ‘family business.’ They were exorcists, which Takashi was to understand meant that they sealed or at times even _killed_ ayakashi that posed a risk to humans, and now that he had been adopted by them, he was expected to become an exorcist as well. The lessons took place in the afternoons on schooldays and in the morning on weekends, in a small room with the other three children close to his age and the elderly man who taught them. Takashi wasn’t sure what he thought about that. He wasn’t sure that he liked the idea of becoming an exorcist; even if ayakashi gave him trouble a lot, he didn’t like the idea of _killing_ them over it. He didn’t furnish his opinion; he wasn’t sure that anyone would really be interested in hearing it. At least the lessons themselves were interesting.

Whatever he felt about this place and the people here, it didn’t matter. Takashi knew it wouldn’t last. One thing would happen, then another, and eventually, he’d leave, move on to the next house, the next family that looked upon him with wary, distrustful eyes. After all, they always started nice, but they never stayed that way.

(He thought, though, that when the time came and he had to go live with someone else, he’d miss the feeling of being believed when he told the truth.)

-0-0-0-

“What flavor do you want?”

“I don’t care which one.”

“You must have a favorite, Takashi-kun. Which is it?”

“Ummm… Are there any blue ones?”

“Why, yes, there are.”

No one had been able to figure out who it was who kept leaving popsicles in the freezer for the children living on the main estate, though there was no doubt about who they were intended for—the sign, ‘ _FOR THE KIDS_ ’ emblazoned in bold black permanent ink was pretty difficult to mistake. That was the way it was done, after all; if any personal food items weren’t labelled with the name of the owner, it was liable to end up on someone else’s plate. Of course, sometimes people would find their food gone even if they _had_ labeled it. To his great displeasure, this had happened to Seiji on multiple occasions. He was pretty sure Nanase was the only one who had never had any of her food stolen that way.

Whoever it was who kept buying popsicles for the children living on the main estate, they at least had the sense to put them high up enough in the freezer that the children themselves couldn’t get to them without an adult’s help. Takashi was good about asking before eating between mealtimes—a little too good, Seiji thought sometimes, and he would wonder, more than he wanted to, about the kind of relationship Takashi had had with the people he had lived with in the past—but Seiji knew well enough from memories of his own childhood that even a biddable child would try to ruin his supper once in a while. He didn’t see any harm in it today, though. Takashi had been sick recently, and a popsicle was basically just frozen water with food coloring and flavoring, anyways, so it probably wouldn’t make him sick again.

With some difficulty, Seiji tore the opaque plastic wrapper off of the popsicle, and handed the popsicle over to Takashi. As they made their way out of the house, Takashi glanced shyly up at him. “Erm… Seiji-san?”

“Yes?”

“Me and Chizu and Yoshi and Koharu were going to go out to the east forest after lunch tomorrow, and…”

“And you need a chaperone?”

Takashi nodded. The look in his eyes was a cautious one, decidedly ill-fitting on a child with blue-stained lips from sucking on a popsicle.

Seiji smiled down at him, trying to look reassuring. “Well, I don’t have anything I have to do tomorrow afternoon, so I can go with you, if you want.”

At that, the caution melted from Takashi’s eyes, and his face lit up in a smile. “Thanks!”

When they got outside, Takashi ran out to meet up with Koharu, and Seiji stood under the awning, watching them.

He hadn’t expected to become as attached to Takashi as he had. He still wasn’t sure what it was—the first time Takashi had crawled into Seiji’s futon with him after a nightmare on his own instead of being told that he could, the shy smiles that would appear unexpectedly on that guarded face, or maybe it was Takashi’s sheer earnestness that had done the trick. Maybe it was the way he looked at him without seeming to see the shadow of anyone or anything else behind him.

(In retrospect, Seiji should have known that it was all too good to last. Something always went wrong around the time everything started to seem so happy.)

-0-0-0-

In the night there came the sound of splintering wood, a sharp, angry shout, and the pounding of footsteps on the floor. Seiji was up and at the door in an instant, pausing only to take a knife out of a dresser. _It’s here already?_ he wondered, testing the sharpness of the blade. _Hopefully I won’t need this; hopefully he’ll be able to drive it off without—_

“What’s happening?” Takashi asked tremulously. Apparently, he’d been woken by the noise. He stared off in the direction the sounds were coming from, his eyes wide with fright.

Seiji frowned, struck for a moment by indecision. Then, he knelt down in front of Takashi. “Listen, Takashi-kun. Stay in this room until I come back. I have the key; I’ll lock it behind me. Don’t open it for _anyone_. Do you understand?”

Still all but radiating fright, Takashi nodded.

“Good. I’ll explain in the morning.”

The morning came, and the look on Takashi’s face was one that clearly demanded an explanation. Seiji sighed. “No one’s told you about our clan’s, eh, curse yet, have they?”

“No.”

Of course not. It was something the vast majority of Matoba clansmen learned at a very young age and then proceeded never to openly acknowledge again except by carrying around umbrellas at the designated time. Seiji couldn’t even remember when first he’d learned of it; it was so long ago. It might have been when his grandfather died, but maybe even further back than that. “…Long ago, a head of the Matoba clan made a bargain with an ayakashi…”

When Seiji finished, he put a hand on Takashi’s shoulder, concerned. The young boy’s face had gone absolutely white. “So… Is… Is that what’s gonna happen to you, too?”

“Well, hopefully not for a long time.”

Takashi nodded jerkily, and turned away. He wouldn’t make eye contact with Seiji or with anyone else for the rest of the day.

-0-0-0-

The situation only deteriorated further after Takashi first became aware of the eye-stealing ayakashi. He had been sick off and on nearly constantly since coming to live on the main estate. Seiji had asked Nanase and she told him that it wasn’t uncommon for seeing children from families with no background in exorcism to become ill often when they first came to live in houses with ayakashi. “ _It was the same for me when I first came to live here. Give him time and he’ll adjust._ ” Takashi did not appear to be adjusting well, however. If anything, he seemed to be staying sick for longer periods of time every time he fell ill. And that was only the first of the problems Takashi was now facing.

The ayakashi hadn’t exactly stopped bothering Takashi when the Matoba clan took him in. They were perhaps a touch more cautious about it, but they still gave him far more grief than he deserved. It had gotten to the point that Seiji had to instruct Takashi to wait at his school each day for him to pick him up, but even at home, Seiji couldn’t watch Takashi every hour of the day, and there was trouble.

Seiji had no idea at first just what it was about Takashi that would make an ayakashi risk incurring the wrath of the entire Matoba clan by trying to attack one of their dependents on their own property. Reprisals were made, examples made, but they still kept coming, regardless, almost desperate in their attempts to get to the boy.

Nanase had mentioned that she had heard long ago of a woman named Natsume Reiko, apparently not an exorcist, but who was nonetheless the absolute terror of the ayakashi in the local area. Takashi confirmed that his grandmother’s name was Reiko, and that cleared up at least part of the issue. Ayakashi targeting the descendant of a human they had a grudge against was something Seiji was _intimately_ familiar with. But with one exception, ayakashi who had a grudge against the Matoba clan tended not to risk the immediate wrath of the entire clan by attacking them on the grounds of one of their houses. There must have been something more to this than the ayakashi simply having a grudge against Reiko, and taking it out on her grandchild. But what?

Takashi had taken to gluing himself to his side whenever Seiji was not caught up in his duties to the clan. He looked pale, miserable, exhausted.

And there were, of course, the human enemies an exorcist made. A typical exorcist could make enemies aplenty, but the heir of the Matoba clan, just by virtue of who he was, would have attracted plenty of enemies from both without and within his clan. And Seiji, unfortunately for Takashi, had a talent for angering people. It was an attack by a human, however ineffectual and however thwarted, that finally convinced Seiji that the situation had become untenable.

He had been told, before Takashi had ever come here, that it would be his responsibility to keep him safe. Well, as far as Seiji could see, he couldn’t do that living on the clan’s property.

“Takashi-kun?” Seiji said softly, early one morning. He shook Takashi awake and pressed a hand on his shoulder. “Get dressed. There’s a friend of mine who lives in the city. We’re going to go visit him.”

**Author's Note:**

> *At this point, Seiji would have no reason to know that Takashi’s father took his wife’s surname and not the other way around.


End file.
